Heritage Western Cape issues a permit, based on the merits of the application and an environmental impact assessment. This permit takes into account the development planning and zoning regulations of a local authority's Land Use Ordinance. By ensuring that heritage matters are included in impact assessments for proposed developments, developers are able to identify heritage resources. Thus developers will be able to proceed without uncertainty about whether work will be stopped if a heritage resource is discovered.

The permit system addresses a range of heritage resources:

• archaeological
• palaeontological sites and meteors
• architecture
• ethnographic and decorative art
• graves and burial grounds, including ancestral and royal graves, graves of traditional leaders, and graves of victims of conflict
• places of significant historical events, landscapes and natural features of cultural significance;
• living heritage associated with heritage and oral history, or scientific merit
• sites relating to the history of slavery in South Africa
• shipwrecks.